Sony patent application measures load times to detect pirated games

A hard drive full of Blu-Ray disc images wouldn't work under the new method.

Sony seems prepared to unleash a new tool in its never-ending battle against game pirates, using measured load times, of all things, to detect certain illegitimate copies of its games.

Sony's patent for "Benchmark measurement for legitimate duplication validation" was filed way back in August 2011, but it was only published by the US patent office late last week. The patent describes a method for a system that would measure load times for games loaded into a system against a previously measured threshold for what those load times ought to be on a standard, unmodified game and system:

For example, if an authentic game title is distributed exclusively on [Blu-ray discs] having a total benchmark load time of 45 seconds on a game console BD drive, the acceptable range of load times could be from 40 to 50 seconds. Thus, a total measured title load time of four seconds would be outside of the acceptable range of total load times for a legitimate media type.

Even if the pirated media results in similar overall load times to the original media (if a hacker added an intentional delay, for instance, or if a pirated game on a hard drive loaded similarly to an authentic game on a flash drive), the method described in the patent also measures load times for individual segments of the game code to detect fraudulent copies.

As described, the system depends on the different rotational delays for different media types to detect illicit copies. If a pirate managed to make a whole-disc copy of a Blu-ray disc game to another Blu-ray disc, the identical load times would presumably be undetectable by this method.

But the patent also describes a secondary validation method that would compare a game's serial number to some database of valid, active serial numbers. This system could also look for duplicate serial numbers to detect "a single serial number that has been registered in conjunction with multiple products, or that has been contained in the collected user identification information of multiple unique users." Besides preventing pirated games, this part of the method could also conceivably be used to detect and block games purchased secondhand from being played, though Sony has publicly stated that the PlayStation 4 won't have any such restrictions.

Other console makers have used physical methods to try to prevent piracy in the past. Microsoft releases its Xbox 360 discs in a proprietary "Xbox Game Disc" format that can't be copied directly to commercially available blank DVDs. Nintendo used an exclusive mini-DVD format for the GameCube to similarly thwart pirates, though it wasn't long before hackers got around that issue.

Even with the patent application (which has yet to be granted), it's not clear this kind of anti-piracy system will actually be used in the PlayStation 4 or any current or future Sony hardware. Still, the patent itself shows Sony is thinking outside the box for ways to thwart piracy going forward.

Sony pulled all of the good stuff out of the PS3 over the first few years, I can't believe they will stick by their word that they won't ban used games. The EULA on the games already state that you can't resell them.

This is... retarded. We have this cool command called "sleep" or whatever language equivalent. And invoking that would bypass this god-aweful measure. Thanks sony for trying to fight fire with a wooden mallet. And if that's not enough, we can do a busy loop to eat ur cpu and force waiting. There's no way to stop arbitrary code form wasting time...

Wait, you say, they are measuring ALL loading times. No problem. I'll just modify my ISO reader to spit out data at the exact same speed as a blue-ray player. Thus emulating a blue-ray slowdown.

It goes on. This is stupid... I... ugh I just cant come to terms with the stupidity.

All they need to do to keep people from cracking their system wide open is to let the hardware be open to running different OSs.

The only reason the PS3 was cracked was because they ceased allowing the couple hundred or so hardcore nerds that really wanted to run Linux on it to do so. These people broke through the entire security system just so they could reinstall Linux. Side effect, their work gave everyone who cared to the means to crack PS3 games.

(It also didn't help that their random number generator always generated the same number for their elliptic key cryptography.)

So they have gone through the time and trouble and spent the R&D money to create a system to detect pirated Blu-Rays in an era when they are openly pushing everyone into digital distribution. Way to keep your eye on the ball there, Sony!

But the patent also describes a secondary validation method that would compare a game's serial number to some database of valid, active serial numbers. This system could also look for duplicate serial numbers to detect "a single serial number that has been registered in conjunction with multiple products, or that has been contained in the collected user identification information of multiple unique users."

Surely not even the USPTO could wave this bit through - this is precisely what almost every "register your product online" link has done since it first showed up around the mid-1990s.

But the patent also describes a secondary validation method that would compare a game's serial number to some database of valid, active serial numbers. This system could also look for duplicate serial numbers to detect "a single serial number that has been registered in conjunction with multiple products, or that has been contained in the collected user identification information of multiple unique users."

Surely not even the USPTO could wave this bit through - this is precisely what almost every "register your product online" link has done since it first showed up around the mid-1990s.

But I agree the DRM stuff is ridiculous. Cinavia pretty much killed the PS3 as a media center. Most of my material is legal, but I rip some DVDs for convenience reasons and suddenly the PS3 stops playing the movies. Way to go Sony. And it doesn't stop anything it simply makes the PS3 unusable as a media center. They really need to get rid of the Sony media guys. They completely fuck up their hardware departments.

Other console makers have used physical methods to try to prevent piracy in the past. Microsoft releases its Xbox 360 discs in a proprietary "Xbox Game Disc" format that can't be copied directly to commercially available blank DVDs

...lol?

Anyway, as stated before, this whole timing issue seems like it would be trivially easy to defeat. Love the load time as a feature idea...ha.

Forget for a moment that this will take almost no time for the dirty pirates to circumvent. Are they basically confirming that there will be no feature to cache most of the game to the local drive for fast bootup? Seems like something that would be in a next gen console.

I always get a laugh out of silly things like that. When are they going to admit that it is impossible to stop the pirates. Once someone has full control of the hardware there is no way to prevent them from doing what every they want with it. Sure, you can make it more difficult but this wouldn't even be that hard to deal with especially with the process detailed in a nice patent application.

What I want to know is what happens when a legitimate users disc gets scratch or the drive is starting to fail and the disc takes longer to read than it should because it's having to retry to succeed. Does the game all of a sudden think you are a pirate and refuse to play turning an annoyance into a fatal problem.

These big companies need to realize how to properly do this. Don't ever try to stop the pirates completely. You can't do it and you'll only end up annoying your legitimate customers in the process when you come up with more and more complicated things to try to stop the pirates. Make sure that what ever scheme you want to use sufficient to stop casual pirating and as painless for your legitimate users as possible and don't go any further.

I hacked my Wii to play games. I would rip all of my games on to a hard drive. I initially did this because my DVD drive decided to become distressingly loud out but I soon discovered how nice it was to have reduced load times. Even on the Wii it made a difference. I considered hacking my PS3 for similar effect but opted not too. I own my games but I have to say increased load times is nice. In fact it si the most frustrating thing about my Wii U purchase.

I hacked my Wii to play games. I would rip all of my games on to a hard drive. I initially did this because my DVD drive decided to become distressingly loud out but I soon discovered how nice it was to have reduced load times. Even on the Wii it made a difference. I considered hacking my PS3 for similar effect but opted not too. I own my games but I have to say increased load times is nice. In fact it si the most frustrating thing about my Wii U purchase.

And in a time when reasonably fast storage is cheap all you say makes tons of sense. 40-50 seconds is a bloody eternity.

Sony pulled all of the good stuff out of the PS3 over the first few years, I can't believe they will stick by their word that they won't ban used games. The EULA on the games already state that you can't resell them.

Really? All the good stuff?

Odd, mine plays games, plays Blu-Rays and is the best Netflix device on the market. You must be a moron.

I believe he was referring to PS2 backwards-compatibility. Considering that PS2 games were far better and more plentiful than those of any console from this generation, I'd call that a pretty significant loss.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.